Men's basketball: CU Buffs' Sabatino Chen makes most of first start

Senior played tough defense against Wofford

Sophomore guards Askia Booker and Spencer Dinwiddie accounted for 26 points, eight rebounds, four assists, two blocks and a steal.

But it was Colorado's lone senior that demonstrated how Colorado basketball is supposed to be played.

Sabatino Chen played some suffocating defense after the intermission as the Buffs quickly turned a 34-23 lead into a relatively comfortable 74-59 victory over Wofford College on Friday night at the Coors Events Center.

"The difference in the game, when we really kind of blew it open in the second half, was Sabatino's intensity on the defensive end," head coach Tad Boyle said.

It was the first start at CU for Chen, the former Monarch High School star who transferred from the University of Denver as soon as Boyle took the job.

On the offensive end, Chen knocked down a wide open 3-pointer -- something the 6-4 guard is going to have to do consistently this season -- early in the game and finished with nine points in 20 minutes.

The statistic that made the head coach the most happy, other than the crowd of 10,611, was Wofford only getting two layups all evening.

Advertisement

"You can't expect as a coach on November 9th for your team to be executing in mid-season form. It's just not reality," Boyle said. "I loved our effort, I love the makeup of this team ... we've got to keep driving them. We can't be satisfied with where we are."

The Buffs had an 18-10 edge in bench points, but early in the game the guards seemed to forget about Scott in the offense. When junior Shane Harris-Tunks substituted in the 6-11 center found Chen for the 3-pointer in the corner and then scored on a nice low-post move.

CU finished the game with a 26-6 scoring advantage in the paint. Wofford limited the Buffs' transition offense and made 13-of-35 (37.1 percent) 3-pointers.

"The first six minutes of the game we didn't get any post touches, really until Shane came in there," Boyle said. "Hopefully our guards figure out when we get the ball inside good things happen."

Xavier Johnson also gave CU a spark off the bench with eight rebounds and five points in 24 minutes. Eli Stalzer added five points on 2-for-2 shooting in 16 minutes.

A fourth member of the 2012 recruiting class, Xavier Talton, played 10 minutes. The guard from Sterling was 0-for-3 from the field but followed Chen's lead in the defensive end.

"I think overall, they played well," Dinwiddie said of the freshmen. "Eli, in particular, didn't make any mistakes and knocked down an open three. You got to see how talented Xavier (Johnson) is. You saw him able to get the ball to the rim and you saw him also put down a ton of rebounds. So, that was good.

"Josh did his thing, probably mostly in scoring. And then Xavier (Talton), he went out there and played solid for us and gave us really solid minutes."

And the Buffs won on a night when Andre Roberson eased himself into the season with seven points, six rebounds, three steals, two blocks and two assists.

CU will play Dayton in the opening round of the Charleston Classic on Thursday (10:30 a.m., ESPN3).

"It is important because the teams we play in Charleston are going to have more talent than Wofford. And that is not to disrespect Wofford's talent, I have immense respect for them," Boyle said. "We're going to run into bigger, stronger teams that execute like Wofford did and shoot threes like Wofford. So we are going to have to have our ducks in a row."

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.